The Downside

We've been very impressed with the prolific production rate of the tomatoes and eggplants Cindy planted in the three GrowBox containers this summer.  The plants have been large and the tomatoes have been numerous and delicious.  The Purple Bumblebee tomato planted in the GrowBox was double or even triple the size of the same variety planted in soil in the raised bed:   http://plantagarden-itllgrowonyou.blogspot.com/2020/05/a-tale-of-two-tomatoes.html

However, we've also been experiencing a lot more mosquitoes this summer than we've ever had in the past.  And two invasive, non-native mosquito species have recently been detected in San Diego County: the Egyptian Mosquito, Aedes aegypti, and the Asian Tiger Mosquito, Aedes albopictus.  These mosquitoes can transmit the viruses that cause Zika, Dengue, Chikungunya and Yellow fever.  Fortunately, these viruses are rare in San Diego, but this is definitely NOT an insect you want to encourage in your yard.  https://www.sandiegocounty.gov/content/sdc/deh/pests/aedes.html

So we've been scratching our heads trying to figure out why we're experiencing so many more of these lovely creatures this year and where there could be any standing water nearby, and this morning the light bulb went on:  they're probably breeding in the water reservoir in the base of the Grow Boxes.  The two boxes in front of the garage have been done and cleaned out for over a month now, but the one behind the water tank, the one with the gigantic Purple Bumblebee tomato plant in it, is still going and Cindy has been faithfully adding water to it every day.  

That plant is about done now, too, so that box will be cleaned and dried out soon.  But that leaves us with the dilemma of what to do about next year:  we love tomatoes, but definitely don't want to encourage the breeding of mosquitoes.  Any chemical added to the water to kill mosquitoes would probably be transmitted up through the root system into the plants and probably into the fruits as well, so that doesn't sound like an acceptable solution.  

San Diego County does encourage people to use Mosquito Fish, Gambusia affinis to control mosquito larvae, so that may be a solution for next year.  

As Nan Sterman says, "every garden is a science experiment", and our will probably be even more of one next year.  

Return of the Mystery Pruner?

We've had a volunteer rose bush that grows in the planter beside the garage.  Cindy periodically cuts it back and tries to dig out the roots, but it persists and eventually reappears, as it did this year.  It wasn't high on the gardening priority list, but this morning I noticed that most of the canes had been raggedly chopped back, most of them about 5 or 6 inches off the ground.  

Just A Couple of Sticks

And One Long One

One cane was still about a foot long, and one small one had been left completely alone.  None of the other plants showed any sign of damage at all.  I thought it might have been a skunk because I had noticed a kind of skunky smell in the area, but Cindy pointed out that the plant about two feet away is called Skunk Plant for a very good reason--that's what it smells like.  When the leaves are disturbed, it smells very much like a skunk has passed by recently.  

So what kind of critter eats rose canes?  And apparently nothing else.  The last time we had a critter "prune" some of our citrus plants, we eventually concluded it must have been a deer.  See http://plantagarden-itllgrowonyou.blogspot.com/2012/01/new-garden-mystery.html  Even though we live in a city of 1.3 million people, surrounded by freeways, deer do sometimes come down the San Diego River, sometime with startling results.   https://plantagarden-itllgrowonyou.blogspot.com/2013/01/yes-deer.html

I'm finding it hard to believe that deer would be such selective eaters that they would prefer a few rose canes to whole garden beds full of tomatoes, green beans, eggplant and other veggie delights.  And although Cindy's anti-varmint panels have been very good protection against the ravages of the California Ground Squirrel population, I don't think they would stand up to a determined deer.

It's still a mystery.  

Mite Busters!

On June 5th, Cindy heard what she thought was a "nesting song" sung by the House Finches.  The next day, twigs started appearing on the beam over our front porch--the porch we had only reclaimed three weeks before from the previous nesting experience.  On June 7th, she saw two female finches apparently fighting over the nesting material on the beam.  Or maybe it was Mama and Papa Finch finishing the nest.  By June 8th, Mama seemed to have settled into the nest and begun to incubate the eggs.  

Location, Location, Location!

We sighed and resigned ourselves to using the back door and having our happy hour on the back patio instead of on the front porch in the afternoon for at least the next month while the birds incubated and hatched their eggs.  

Finally, after about two weeks, we saw Mama Finch poking around in the nest, and a couple of days later saw two little fuzzy heads poking up above the rim of the nest and both Mama and Papa feeding the two chicks.  

By July 1st we were seeing at least three heads and hearing cheeping, but it was several more days before any of them had real feathers.  We were never sure how many eggs and chicks there were in the nest, and they just seemed to keep coming.  Finally the chicks began to leave the nest one by one.  One of the adult birds would sit in the shrubbery across the driveway or on the porch railing chirping at them.  Then both adults would fly up to the beam, fly back down, back up, back down, back up, and eventually one of the chicks would fly off with both parents.  It took several days, but by Friday at dinnertime there was only one chick left, standing on the very edge of the nest looking a bit lonely.  By the time we got up in the morning, the last one had flown.  

So we were "empty nesters" again, but we were determined to not make the same mistake we made last time:  then we waited a couple of days before we took down the nest, wore masks and gloves but no other protective gear and didn't go in and take showers right away.  Bird mites live on birds, and when there are no birds around, they look for another host:  us.  Cindy got the worst of it, with about forty mite bites, and the remaining mites continued to bite us for about three weeks before they all died off.  This time we were ready for them.  We ordered some Tyvek suits with hoods and wore them with gloves and masks.  We looked like space aliens, or something out of Ghostbusters.

Who Was That Masked Woman?

Cindy climbed up the ladder and sprayed the nest with a miticide solution several times before we took the nest down.  Then we sprayed the porch and porch furniture to make sure we got them all.  Then we went in, threw our clothes in the washer and took showers.  

Space Aliens in the Neighborhood????

Our neighbor across the street took this picture of the two of us as we were cleaning up.    

We've always tried to live by Mr. Bennett's dictum in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, "For what do we live but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?"

They're Baaaaaaackkk. Again.

It's been three weeks since the last of the fledglings left the nest the House Finches built on the beam above our front porch.  http://plantagarden-itllgrowonyou.blogspot.com/2020/05/finches-leave-nest.html

Three weeks that we've been able to go in and out our front door and sit on our front porch without worrying about disturbing the birds.  And three weeks that it's taken us to get rid of the bird mites that started biting us after we took down the old nest.

We weren't very smart when we took down the old nest.  We wore masks and gloves, anticipating some debris and dried bird poop, but dislodging the nest from the plastic spikes that, far from discouraging the birds to nest there seem actually to have become a desirable design feature of their nests, created a cloud of airborne dust, debris and apparently a vast colony of hungry mites.  We have no idea which of the thousands of species of mites they were, but probably some type of bird mite, a parasite that feeds on the blood of birds.  Ravenous bird mites with no birds to feast on look for the nearest substitute, and we were it.  More about the bird mite.  And more:  http://medent.usyd.edu.au/fact/birdmite.html.

We should probably have gone inside and taken showers and washed our clothes immediately after we took down the nest, but we didn't do that and consequently have spent most of the last three weeks dealing with the itching and discomfort caused by the mite bites.  Bird mites don't survive long without birds to feed on, but it was long enough for us.

We're too soft hearted to take down the new nest before the birds lay a new set of eggs, but we're not happy they're back.

Next time we take a nest down:  full on hazmat suits.

We Will Rise Up

We noticed this yellow Alstroemeria blooming on the north side of the house the other day.

That's not unusual; there are lots of other Alstroemeria plants in that flower bed.  What made it unusual was that it wasn't in the flower bed, but on top of the four foot tall chain link fence running between our house and the neighbors' house.  These plants only grow to about 18 to 24 inches tall.   It appeared to be growing out of the the Thunbergia vine that is growing up and over the fence.

I don't know what this Alstromeria plant is living on, or where it'g getting water, but it is surviving.

Maybe it's a metaphor for our times, a sign that when our own survival seems improbable that we can still not only survive, but even rise up.

A Tale Of Two Tomatoes

Cindy decided to experiment with her tomatoes this year by trying a Grow Box for some of them, and planting others in several of the raised beds.

Grow Box

The Grow Box is basically a planter box that incorporates soil and fertilizer above a water reservoir.  Cindy bought three of them and put two in front of the garage door, where they will get maximum morning sunlight, and one on the west side of our 100 gallon water tank.

Then she started planting the tomatoes she had started from seed and been raising in the mini-greenhouse behind the garage.

Seedling Tomatoes Ready to Plant

And the tomatoes started to grow.

Garage Grow Boxes With Optional Supports

And grow.

All the seedlings, both those in the Grow Boxes and those in the raised beds were looking sturdy and healthy.  As part of the experiment, she planted pairs in different places, one of a pair in a grow box and one in a growing bag in a raised bed to see whether there was any noticeable difference in how they grew.  All the plants were started from seed at the same time, exposed to the same amount of sun in the mini-greenhouse and planted in the same soil in both the raised beds and the grow boxes.

So, approximately three weeks from planting the seedlings, there is indeed a noticeable difference in the pairs of plants.

These are the plants of the Purple Bumble Bee Tomato from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.

Purple Bumble Bee in Raised Bed

Purple Bumble Bee in Grow Box

The plant in the raised bed is about 18 inches tall; the one in the grow box is approximately 32 inches tall and much bushier.  Same variety of plant, same soil.  The two possible differences are that the plant in the bag in the raised bed is on a drip watering system, while the one in the grow box has constant access to the water in the reservoir at the bottom of the box.  Cindy fertilized the one in the bag with her usual fertilizer, but used the nutrient patch cover that comes with the Grow Box.

Both plants are looking very healthy and already have blossoms forming, so in a few weeks we may have actual tomatoes from them to compare.

Finches Leave The Nest

We think the second of the four House Finch fledglings left the nest this morning; the first one seems to have left yesterday afternoon.  There were only two heads visible in the nest this morning when Mama bird was feeding them, and they both look like they still have some growing to do.

Old House Finch Nest

This photo is from a nest from two years ago.  The House Finches love this location on the beam that runs above our front porch because it's close to the birdseed feeder and the fountain in the back yard, and it's well protected from predators.

We had some Mourning Doves nesting there years ago.  They were not very good parents; they would just throw a few twigs on the beam and call it a nest, and one day one of the parents turned around and its tail feathers swept the chick right off the beam.  So we decided to discourage them from coming back by installing some plastic spikes along the top of the beam.  That seemed to work--they kept coming back for a while, but apparently couldn't figure out the spikes.  My stern lecture to one of the doves sitting on the porch railing about the need for them to be better parents if they chose to nest there again may also have influenced their decision to go elsewhere ("The neighbors are crazy people, Gladys, they talk to birds, we'd better go somewhere else.")

The House Finches are a different story, though.  Far from discouraging them from nesting there, the plastic spikes provided them with a means to secure their nest by weaving their twigs, pine needles and Asparagus Fern in and around the spikes for better protection and stability.

They are very good parents, with both parents maintaining a regular feeding schedule for all their chicks.  They stick fairly close to the chicks for a while after they leave the nest, apparently teaching them how to navigate the big world.  Several years ago we saw a mother House Finch trying to show her chick how to get seed from the feeder.  Junior wanted Mama to keep feeding him, but she apparently felt it was time for him to move on.  http://plantagarden-itllgrowonyou.blogspot.com/2014/07/mama-bird-and-junior.html.